The invention disclosed herein relates to improvements in extendable legrests or footrests of the type disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,819,987 and U.S. Pat. No. 4,509,795 for passenger seats. U.S. Pat. No. 4,819,987 discloses an extendable foot rest pivotally mounted on the underside of a passenger seat. The foot rest comprises an outwardly extending leg portion which is pivotally connected to the frame and a foot bar pivotally connected to the legrest. The legrest is extended by a hydraulic actuator having a piston and cylinder combination with a spring sliding over the cylinder to expand the actuator. Hydraulic fluid is transferred between chambers in the piston and in the cylinder through an orifice controlled by a pressure relief pin. When the orifice is opened by the operation of the pressure relief pin a spring urges the actuator toward an extended position. The hydraulic actuator which extends horizontally under the seat has one end connected to the legrest and another end connected to the seat frame.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,509,795 discloses a self deploying legrest assembly for a passenger seat pivotally mounted to the seat frame with a spring-loaded hydraulic lock mechanism which automatically lifts the legrest to a generally horizontal position when a control button on the armrest is actuated. The legrest panel is pivotally moved to its storage position under the front edge of the seat cushion when the occupant applies force to push it down against the upward biasing force exerted by springs in the actuator while actuating the control button on the armrest. A cushioned pad is provided with side channels which accommodate pairs of slide blocks mounted on the outer ends of a pair of legrest support arms. The cushioned pad can be manually moved fore and aft by the occupant toward the ends of the slide channels to provide the occupant with an infinite number of fore and aft positions which can be retained by friction. A vertically mounted hydraulic actuator is connected to the support arm below the center of the front portion of the seat cushion.
Fully electric seats have been employed to permit extension of the lower portion of a legrest relative to the upper portion thereof. The electrically actuated legrest has a lower panel unit sliding on the underneath side of an upper panel unit and actuated by a mechanism which automatically extends the lower panel unit when the upper panel unit was deployed.
A single control button on the arm of the seat energizes an electric motor to drive a screw type actuator which rotated the upper panel unit relative to the seat and simultaneously extended the lower panel unit in unison relative to the upper panel unit.